Snowden accuses US of blocking asylum requests

Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower charged with leaking secret US surveillance information, has insisted he is free to make new disclosures about US spying activity.

It is his first public announcement since flying to Russia on 23 June, where he has applied for asylum.

The former CIA analyst, who is holed up in a Moscow airport hotel, is wanted by the US on charges of espionage.

He says President Obama is putting pressure on the countries from which he has requested political asylum.

"The president ordered his vice president to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions," he is quoted by Wikileaks as saying.

"This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me."

In the statement, Mr Snowden describes himself as "a stateless person", accusing the US government of stopping him from exercising the "basic right...to seek asylum".

n a letter to Ecuador seen by the Reuters news agency, Snowden on Monday said the United States was illegally persecuting him for revealing its electronic surveillance programme, PRISM, but made it clear he did not intend to be muzzled.

"I remain free and able to publish information that serves the public interest," he said in the undated letter in Spanish sent to Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa.

"No matter how many more days my life contains, I remain dedicated to the fight for justice in this unequal world. If any of those days ahead realise a contribution to the common good, the world will have the principles of Ecuador to thank."

Reuters also reported Snowden had applied for political asylum in Norway, citing foreign ministry spokesman Frode Andersen who confirmed that an asylum application had been received by fax.  

The application was sent to the Norwegian embassy in Moscow on Monday, Reuters added.

Believed to be holed up in the transit area of Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, Snowden is also seeking political asylum in Russia, although President Vladimir Putin says he is not welcome unless he stops harming US interests.

Snowden poured scorn on the US government and accused it of waging an "extrajudicial man-hunt" against him.

"While the public has cried out support of my shining a light on this secret system of injustice, the Government of the United States of America responded with an extrajudicial man-hunt costing me my family, my freedom to travel, and my right to live peacefully without fear of illegal aggression," he wrote.

Sarah Harrison, an activist with the anti-secrecy organisation WikiLeaks, who is travelling with Snowden, handed his asylum application to a consular official in the transit area at Sheremetyevo airport late on Sunday, Kim Shevchenko, a consul at the airport, told Reuters.

The Los Angeles Times, citing an unidentified Russian foreign ministry official, reported that Snowden had met Russian diplomats and given them a list of 15 countries where he wished to apply for asylum. Foreign Ministry and Kremlin officials declined immediate comment on the reports.

Putin, speaking eight days after Snowden landed in Moscow, repeated that Russia had no intention of handing him over to the United States, where he faces espionage charges.

"Russia has never given up anyone to anybody and does not plan to. And nobody ever gave anyone up to us," Putin said.

"If he wants to stay here, there is one condition: He must stop his work aimed at harming our American partners, as strange as that sounds coming from my lips," he told reporters after a gas exporters' conference in Moscow.

But Putin said he suspected that Snowden would not stop leaking information, because "he feels himself to be a human rights activist".

"So he must choose a country of destination and go there," he said, speaking before the asylum request to Russia was reported. "Unfortunately, I don't know when this will happen."

Correa said on Sunday that Snowden's fate was in Russia's hands because Ecuador could not consider the plea until he reached Ecuador or one of its embassies.

Ecuador granted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange asylum at its embassy in London where he has been holed up for more than a year, fighting extradition to Sweden over sexual assault charges.

Shortly after Snowden fled the United States to Hong Kong last month and long before he arrived in Russia, Putin suggested the surveillance methods he revealed were justified in fighting terrorism, if carried out lawfully.

Obama, at a news conference in Tanzania dominated by the EU controversy, repeated that the United States was working through law enforcement channels to prod Russia to extradite Snowden.

Obama said there had been "high-level discussions with the Russians about trying to find a solution to the problem".